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It took me a long time to come to terms with my mother's decision to visit the second floor after she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She wasn't done living and V.C.'s Second Chance program gave her the option to live forever.
I was twenty-one when she found out that she was dying, and once the choice was made, she started the process.
Mom didn't want to go through chemo that would only prolong the inevitable. Gianna had just found out she was pregnant, and Mom wanted to be around to meet her grandchildren.
Second Chance isn't cut and dry. There is a lot of work that goes into preparing someone for the big change, and she was pretty sick when the twins were born, but she was determined.
Mom went through her change on a small island right outside of Rio de Janeiro shortly after the girls turned one. The venom did its job, destroying the cancer cells, and permanently freezing my mother in time. She spent two years on the island, acclimating and learning the art of maintaining a vegetarian diet.
The way she saw it, she missed two years with Alice and Angela, but once she was in control, she'd have their entire lifetime with them.
When it was time for her to start paying her dues, she and Dad moved a couple hours away, and she was able to get back into teaching. She works as a third grade teacher for a prestigious private school affiliated with the V.A.M.P. program.
She's happy with her decision and beyond healthy now but was livid when I told her about Gianna.
If given the choice, Mom would still choose Second Chance over the alternative, but she tells me that it's hard for her. Being immortal while your loved ones continue to age, knowing that you're going to outlive them unless they make that choice, is something she continually goes to therapy for.
She couldn't understand why my wife was willing to go through that all for vanity purposes.
Parents aren't supposed to bury their children. I'll never understand how Gianna could look at our babies, and try her best, sinking as low as one could go for Eternal Life, knowing she would outlive them one day.